Don't Take Their Word for It: The Misclassification of Bond Mutual Funds - <AUTHOR> https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3474557 <comment><USER2> As someone who has spent a lot of time in the Fixed Income world of finance I think it's great to see a paper where the researchers spend time and energy looking at the methodology a major player in the space such as morningstar is using. The easiest way to improve your returns in corporate credit is to buy lower rated (riskier) bonds as they are more equity (stock) like since you have a larger component of default risk baked into the security price. Over the long term the lower rated bonds will return more but will do so at higher risk. If you can convince morningstar which puts managers into discreet buckets to put your fund in a bucket that is safer than your actual bonds reflect, you now appear to have more return than your peers (although in reality its just because you have more risk).

The lack of accurate risk (reflected by the average bond ratings of your holdings) is what is really at the core of this argument. The researchers joined together some pretty commonly used datasets in the industry (probably what I would use if I were to do this) and impressively were able to properly take the holdings of managers and come up with a proper risk picture (if you believe that rating agency ratings of bonds reflects the true risk but that for another post). Morningstar basically said that they have a crappy dataset which just doesn't have rating data for many bonds and therefor, when they don't have a value, they just fill in with a default. This makes me think that Morningstar is doing a pretty lazy job in their evaluation of managers (what incentive do they really have, they are a monopoly in this area).

Happy to answer any questions people have.

<comment><USER3> What legal agreements actually exist between ratings agencies and their consumers?

As I understand it, there are legal agreements that take ratings as an input (e.g. a pension may only invest in investment grade bonds).

But is there actually any way for a consumer to sue Morningstar? Or are their ratings essentially just "proprietary numbers", no warranty given?

<comment><USER4> Based on the consequences to the ratings agencies of fraudulently (or erroneously) rating mortgage debt in 2000s, there are no laws requiring ratings agencies to be accountable to anyone.

The sellers of the debt, or financial products, are the ones that pay the ratings agencies, so they are the real customers.

The buyers should be doing due diligence, especially considering the conflict of interest, but they are also frequently agents on behalf of taxpayers (for government pensions) or other far removed investor, so agency risk is big here too.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Morningstar published a response to this paper [0].

[0] [https://www.morningstar.com/learn/bond-ratings- integrity](https://www.morningstar.com/learn/bond-ratings-integrity)

<comment><USER6> Hmm, I find this hard to square with Table 2 in the paper. That table illustrates consistent growth in the number of misclassified funds. If, as Morningstar alleges, the difference is in controlling for unrated bonds, that still doesn't close the door to deliberate manipulation on the fund side and misreporting on Morningstar's part. For example they say:

>Because Morningstar's proprietary methodology for calculating Average Credit Quality particularly penalizes unrated holdings by assigning them a low rating (B or BB)

But if I'm the manager of an investment grade fund, why wouldn't I sneak in some crap quality, high yield, unrated bonds? Morningstar will still rate them within the investment grade universe when they might actually be much lower quality. Then all the same problems that the paper alleges arise, my 'unrated' but basically high yield bonds give me good yield and performance numbers and I get a good Morningstar rating and people flock to buy it and I get a nice tidy bonus at the end of the year.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> The Morningstar fixed income style box considers risk along two axes, credit and interest rates. I'm curious if the authors considered misreporting of interest rate risk. It's interesting because the duration of the portfolio (the measure of exposure to interest rates) is not subject to the whims of ratings bureaus, and it is a straightforward calculation -- and yet Morningstar relies on a survey of the manager to get the portfolio duration.

<comment><USER8> If the PM lies about this to Morningstar, they are in violation of the law.

Specifically, I believe that they would fall afoul of FINRA Rule 2210 [0] and SEC Rule 34b-1 [1].

(I run a financial firm, but am not a lawyer, so they may target different rules specifically for the issue of bond duration.)

[0] - [https://www.finra.org/rules-guidance/rulebooks/finra- rules/2...](https://www.finra.org/rules-guidance/rulebooks/finra-rules/2210) [1] - [https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/17/270.34b-1](https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/17/270.34b-1)

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Many individual investors have stayed away from mutual funds for quite some time now. There are better ways to invest your money imo. If the high expense ratios, hidden load charges, and diluted returns were not discouraging enough, this will help firm up that decision.

<comment><USER10> > If the high expense ratios, hidden load charges, and diluted returns were > not discouraging enough, this will help firm up that decision.

None of these things are true for Vanguard mutual funds, and there are some asset classes (muni bonds, money market funds, etc.) that Vanguard only makes available as mutual funds and not as ETFs.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> This is the article I wanted informed comments on the most

<comment><USER12> I cannot provide a well informed comment, but I can offer this: I am not surprised at all that fund managers are slimy and dishonest.

<comment><USER13> > slimy and dishonest

Wouldn't this rise to the level of fraudulent and thus criminal?

<comment><USER14> It's only illegal if you get caught, and then only if the fine is greater than the booty you got swindling honest people out of their money.

<comment><USER15> You _really_ should add that /s.

<comment><USER16> Why?</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


BrowserID: A new web authentication scheme (2011) - <AUTHOR> https://lwn.net/Articles/453065/

<comment><USER2> Was this not renamed to Persona which hit beta recently and posted on HN serveral times already?

<comment><USER3> Persona is Mozilla's service that implements the BrowserID authentication scheme and polyfill. But yes, this was posted multiple times recently.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Note that this is from July 2011.

</comment><comment><USER5> List of supporting websites please!

<comment><USER6> OpenPhoto (<https://openphoto.me/>) supports BrowserID.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: What does your Lisp workflow look like? - <AUTHOR>

[I'm not sure what the etiquette is re. cross-posting; I've also asked this question at http://programmers.stackexchange.com/questions/36535/what-does-your-lisp-workflow-look-like/ in the hopes of getting a broad range of answers.]
I'm learning Lisp at the moment, coming from a language progression that is Locomotive BASIC -> Z80 Assembler -> Pascal -> C -> Perl -> C# -> Ruby. My approach is to simultaneously:
* write a simple web-scraper using SBCL, QuickLisp, closure-html, and drakma
* watch the SICP lectures
I think this is working well; I'm developing good 'Lisp goggles', in that I can now read Lisp reasonably easily. I'm also getting a feel for how the Lisp ecosystem works, e.g. Quicklisp for dependencies.
What I'm really missing, though, is a sense of how a seasoned Lisper actually works.
When I'm coding for .NET, I have Visual Studio set up with ReSharper and VisualSVN. I write tests, I implement, I refactor, I commit. Then when I'm done enough of that to complete a story, I write some AUATs. Then I kick off a Release build on TeamCity to push the new functionality out to the customer for testing & hopefully approval. If it's an app that needs an installer, I use either WiX or InnoSetup, obviously building the installer through the CI system.
So, my question is: as an experienced Lisper, what does your workflow look like? Do you work mostly in the REPL, or in the editor? How do you do unit tests? Continuous integration? Packaging & deployment? When you sit down at your desk, steaming mug of coffee to one side and a framed photo of John McCarthy to the other, what is it that you do?
Currently, I feel like I am getting to grips with Lisp coding, but not Lisp development ... <comment><USER2> I use slime and the repl that it provides. I start a project generally early in the process, and put stuff in methods there, recompiling (reloading with ,lo projectname (a slime trick)) as needed.

I also often do ESC-x with the cursor positioned in a function or top-level form to compile just that function.

All good work flows with Lisp include adding little bits of code, then executing to see how the result has changed. This leverages the beauty of lisp develpment.

There are those who do something similar with vim--adding little bits of code, perhaps in a function, then pasting that either directly or with the help of a package to the REPL.

For many of my programs, I generate an executable that is kicked off automatically, e.g., by cron. To build the executable, use 'save-lisp-and- die'.

And don't hesitate to use quicklisp at <http://www.quicklisp.org>. There are many very useful libraries there. For example, if you need to integrate through the command line, there is the _getopt_ library.

For unit testing, i use xlunit, but I seem to be in the minority for that. There are a handful out there. Some info here [http://aperiodic.net/phil/archives/Geekery/notes-on-lisp- tes...](http://aperiodic.net/phil/archives/Geekery/notes-on-lisp-testing- frameworks.html) and here <http://www.cliki.net/development>.

Now you are mentioning a pretty specific deployment cycle there. WiX will work for executable delivery in a windows environment.

Keep in mind, however that many using lisp for production keep an emacs/slime session open, generally using term, to a running production instance. This is likely to be culturally different that the environment that you are describing above.

I haven't done anything that requires a continuous integration step, as my team size is just one.

</comment><comment><USER3> Emacs + SLIME, ASDF for "packaging" systems.</comment>


To Give A.I. The Gift of Gab, Silicon Valley Needs to Offend You - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/02/21/technology/conversational-bots.html <comment><AUTHOR> "But researchers must also deal with the unexpected"

You'd think from this article that deploying a bot is like letting a dog off its leash and you just have to hope that it doesn't bite anyone. In fact there are several common-sense ways to prevent a bot from going rogue, including monitoring how it responds to intents and then making changes as needed.</comment>


Domain Names of Fortune 500 Companies - <AUTHOR> https://blog.dofo.com/fortune-500-domain-names/ <comment><AUTHOR> "We have analyzed the domains of Fortune 500 companies, to gain insight into their domain preferences. As data were gathered, some interesting facts also got revealed. For example, 14 out of the first 100 registered domains are being used as the official websites of certain Fortune 500 companies today.

494 out of the Fortune 500 companies, which roughly represent 99%, use domains with .com extensions. We see on an interesting side-note that all three companies that use .net extensions operate in the health industry. The extensions that appear only once on the list are .org, .xyz and .technology. An investment consultancy organization TIAA has preferred to use tiaa.org. 22nd on the list and Google's parent company Alphabet's name goes well with its domain, abc.xyz. 374th on the list, DXC Technology similarly complements its name by using dxc.technology domain."

[https://blog.dofo.com/fortune-500-domain- names/](https://blog.dofo.com/fortune-500-domain-names/)</comment>


Cochrane findings that will help you (2012) - <AUTHOR> http://highqualityevidence.blogspot.com/2012/10/cochrane-findings-that-will-help-you.html <comment><USER2> One thing I found particularly interesting was that CBT therapy is 4x as effective as exercise for losing weight.

Exercise leads to an additional 2 lbs of weight loss over dieting alone.

But adding CBT lead to an additional 8 lbs of weight loss over diet and exercise4.

<comment><USER3> I think I'm going to have to change my mind about CBT. It seemed so crackpotty to me, but seems I was wrong! Slim waistline here I come.

<comment><USER4> Don't forget to exercise, just in case.</comment></comment></comment>


Secret Service sought tactical aircraft to protect White House in May - <AUTHOR> https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/secret-service-sought-tactical-aircraft-to-protect-white-house-amid-floyd-demonstrations/2020/08/13/3ceea32a-d5ae-11ea-930e-d88518c57dcc_story.html <comment><USER2> > The Secret Service sought to bolster its protection of the White House with > surveillance aircraft and a Blackhawk helicopter carrying a "fast rope" > commando team after crowds protesting the police killing of George Floyd > knocked down temporary barricades and one man got onto the complex grounds > in late May, according to newly obtained government correspondence.

Makes absolute sense to me to have an air surveillance and a fast mobile team to protect the head of the state and a critical infrastructure (WH complex) from the mob.

<comment><USER3> Yeah any president would have done this. To be honest it's prob standard procedure, not even sure why it's news other than that it sounds sensational.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> The same protest saw the National Guard flying medical helicopters directly over protesters well under the FAA's minimum flight altitude.

Definitely looked like an unsafe altitude to fly at and the National Guard has no flight records of any patient pickups that night.

[https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/03/politics/dc-national-guard- in...](https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/03/politics/dc-national-guard- investigation-helicopters-floyd-protests/index.html)

</comment><comment><USER5> [http://archive.is/kZDYy](http://archive.is/kZDYy)</comment>


Uber recruits engineers with coding puzzles during rides - <AUTHOR> http://www.engadget.com/2016/03/28/uber-code-on-the-road-hacking-challenge/ <comment><USER2> Delta has them code while pulling out of a stall on landing with only partial gear down in a 787. With the engines on fire.

What's up now, Uber?</comment>


You don't need SMS-2FA - <AUTHOR> http://blog.cmpxchg8b.com/2020/07/you-dont-need-sms-2fa.html?m=1 <comment><USER2> The big weak point in the authors argument is credential stuffing. They argue fairly convincingly that 2FA is vulnerable to phishing, but concede it prevents credential stuffing. Then they try to argue that credential stuffing doesn't matter because it can be prevented by using unique passwords, which is the one thing users have been shown to rarely do. 2FA stops credential stuffing cold, that's important.

Also 2FA can stop phishing attacks cold as well, simply by using links instead of codes. So really the author should be using their time to advocate for that.

<comment><USER3> 2FA can, but SMS-2FA depends on your cell provider being resilient to attacks, which they have proven they aren't.

<comment><USER4> If attacking my X account requires also attacking my SMS provider account, it doesn't make it impossible to attack my account.

However, telecom hacks are often more involved, and take more effort to pull off. If I'm a high value target, it's not a big hurdle. If I'm a low value target, I might not be worth it.

<comment><USER5> True, but U2F is still a better choice.

While telcos may eventually fix the broken protocols, it's likely to be decades before that has rolled out widely.

In the meantime attackers are going to automate telecom hacks.. why not?

That said, for simple services sending a single use password by email or SMS is quite easy :) My hairdresser does so for reservations, and it's working out fine.. Nobody cares of that account is hacked anyways.

<comment><USER4> > In the meantime attackers are going to automate telecom hacks.. why not?

A lot of telecom hacks are social engineering, which often leaves an audit trail, and is hard to automate (if they're using the same text to speech engine that makes spam calls, good luck!)

<comment><USER5> SMS spoofing is certainly automated today.

Stealing SMS messages, maybe less so.. but from what I hear the protocol is largely trust based, so it's unclear that it couldn't be.

That said, eventually telcoms will be forced to fix this. I'm just guessing it'll take another decade or two.. it's not like robocalls were trivially fixed when they became annoying.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Two-factor authentication is the "Are you sure you want to _X_?" pattern applied to logins. While the world has been moving away from that interaction pattern elsewhere, it was simultaneously introducing it in a high-friction way somewhere new.

The takeaway from the attempts to eradicate "Are you sure[...]?" has been to just do the thing the user said to do, but make it easy to undo rather than double checking. It would be interesting to see how that philosophy could be applied as an alternative to 2FA.

EDIT: Boy, the replies that this comment spawned sure say something about HN. I count one (muxl's) that has any sense of self-awareness. Do you really believe that I don't understand the "purpose of 2FA"? Come on. Be more charitable.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

EDIT2: It's a little weird that folks who start out with the goal of being intellectually lazy are willing to put so much effort into it.

<comment><USER7> It's one thing if I accidentally delete a file without a warning, but can easily undo it.

But if someone logs in to access my files without authorisation... they've got them now. I can't click undo on them having read my private emails, or whatever the 2FA/other security was protecting.

<comment><USER8> Right, how does GP suggest we undo the act of giving out information? Deploy an ICBM to the geolocated IP that we just accidentally handed out private information to?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23989361](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23989361)

<comment> blaser-waffle ^ Posted yesterday, with more comments. To sum it up:

"jasonpeacock 1 day ago [–]

He's arguing not just against SMS-2FA, but against 2FA itself, and his simple solution is to "just use a strong password". The author completely misses the point about the value of 2FA itself. I agree SMS-2FA is not good, but that doesn't mean 2FA is worthless.

reply"

<comment><USER2> Not just a string password, but also a unique password.

I once ran IT for a small startup (As part of a large portfolio as Ops director), none of the employees put any thought into password security, or cared, no matter whether I set them up with 1password, gave them training sessions, etc.

<comment><USER10> "$100 Amazon gift card to anyone who manages to break into your coworkers account and reports it to IT."

<comment><USER11> Wanna swap passwords?

<comment><USER12> Damn, you're hacking the rules... no hacker would do that!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I need SMS-2FA because my bank requires 2FA and their non-SMS crap app does not start on my crap phone

And apparently that is the case for all banks in the EU

I did my taxes this weekend, and to get to the bank tax statement, I first got 5 SMSs

Everything was much better with iTANs. Paper TANs were perfect for me. Someone could hack my Android 4 phone, but no one can hack a piece of paper

<comment><USER14> It is not true that all banks in EU require that.

I actually thought that SMS as 2nd factor for Banking is not allowed in EU anymore.

All the serious banks that I know of offer asynchronous password tokens (like Digipass), since not everyone trusts those mobile apps, or they simply don't own a smartphone. They don't advertise it too much, since it is easier for the bank to get everyone to use an app, but most of them offer it. If they don't, you should consider changing your bank.

<comment><USER13> They offer that, but I do not have a Digipass. So that is something I cannot use just like their app

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> "Instead, why not simply randomly generate a good password for them, and instruct them to write it down or save it in their web browser? If they lose it, they can use your existing password reset procedure."

Heh. You might as well drop the password and have a 'send the login link to my email" button then.

Why is saving the password in your web browser or any application on your machine - that can also be hacked - considered secure? You're just offering an attacker one single attack point that will yield all your passwords if compromised...

What about people using multiple machines? Should we sync our password store across all our devices, so there is just one server storing them that can be attacked?

And last question, for the SMS-2FA crowd: why would I want my login to depend on my phone number working?

<comment><USER12> > Why is saving the password in your web browser or any application on your > machine - that can also be hacked - considered secure?

So you consider SSH (which normally relies on a private key stored locally) insecure?

(Sure, the SSH key can be further protected with a passphrase, but so can the browser database of passwords. On a modern Mac, it requires unlocking with touch ID.)

<comment><USER15> So we have complex secrets that you _have_ to store digitally because you can't memorize. Where? In a secure store. That has access to it protected by a secret you have to store. Digitally because you can't memorize it. And the store where you store the secret for your secure store for your secrets...

A touch id protected secret store may be secure, and you lose access to your secrets if your laptop/phone gets stolen or breaks down? Or do you back it up to another store protected by different authentication that you have to store?

Looks like you cannot win to me.

The only advantage of generated complex passwords is that they'd be harder to brute force if the server has their password database stolen.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> One point missed by the article is visibility: even with SMS-2FA, I at least know when my password is being used by someone else (modulo sim-based attacks). For example, if my password manager gets hacked, and a password leaks. I think the overall conclusion is still right: it's a rather minor concern and let's come up with a proper solution and not waste the developers' good will on this one.

</comment><comment><USER17> wrong yesterday, wrong today too.

</comment><comment><USER18> This completely ignores the defence in depth principle. Yes it is good that users use strong, unique passwords, but we know the password store can get compromised. A second factor provides additional protection, but it is not foolproof. The network analogy of this post: why use a network firewall, we just need to keep our devices patched and up to date!!

<comment><USER19> >Yes it is good that users use strong, unique passwords, but we know the password store can get compromised.

The point of the article was that there is no downside if your password is unique. They will have your data on that particular site. The rest of the sites are just as secure as they were.

There is no depth here...

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Organizations like to identify you by phone number, because it is the easiest way to prevent duplicate identities (Most users have one and only one number to receive SMS messages). Of course it also makes it easier to purchase and sell customer data.

For this reason I'd guess that many companies use SMS-2FA as an excuse to collect and confirm your mobile number.

</comment><comment><USER21> One of the issues ignored here is the nature of cascading failures that happen during a breach due to password reuse. If a user is compromised through an active credential forwarding attack like the one described the user's account could be compromised on that service. Afterward, however, when the user's credentials are re-used by the attacker to access other accounts that attack is made significantly nosier and ineffective as the user would get an SMS for other services using 2FA.

TL;DR getting a text message every time someone logs in as you is going mean you're much more aware of what's happening with your accounts. Having that text message contain credentials means if it wasn't you logging in (and hence you weren't expecting an SMS) then the login fails.

EDIT: Password managers are great and I'm all for promoting them probably more than 2FA even. The difference between a password manager and 2FA is that a password manager does literally nothing given that your password is known. In that same situation 2FA still does do something and so this appears to be a false dichotomy.

</comment><comment><USER22> Many valid points, but I would say 2fa does help if malware has your creds buy can't be leveraged by an attacker without also successfully phishing the victim with an identical site.</comment>


Ask HN: How to code complex web design trends? - <AUTHOR> As a frontend developer, I always like to visit ui design websites and checkout what are the latest web design trends. I've never had any problems with turning them into code but in the past few months I've come to realize that more and more there are some stuff that I just don't have any idea on how to translate to CSS and I just can't seem to find articles or blog posts talking about this subject. Do you have any tips / links that you would recommend? <comment><USER2> [https://tympanus.net/codrops/](https://tympanus.net/codrops/) and [https://codyhouse.co/](https://codyhouse.co/) are very useful for modern web effects stuff.</comment>


What is the most compact way of expressing data? - <AUTHOR> Obviously binary is the longest  but what would be the opposite of that? Would it be possible to compress a bitcoin key into a very small number of characters using Unicode and other special characters? <comment><USER2> Potentially you could use Unicode encoded in UTF-32, but since there are many fewer Unicode code points than 2^32, there are a lot of valid 32-bit patterns that don't map to a valid UTF-32 encoding of a Unicode code point. As a result, most Bitcoin keys would contain invalid characters, so that scheme doesn't work for all keys, but it does get you down to 8 characters for the keys it does work for.

There are more than 2^16 Unicode code points, so you can definitely use UTF-16, which will get you down to 16 characters.

One thing to note is that you're not actually getting any compression here: each of these character strings is the result of the same 256-bit pattern.

To find out more about how much actual compression you could get of the data, look up Kolmogorov complexity.[0] For most Bitcoin keys/random 256-bit patterns, they aren't going to be significantly compressible, if at all.

[0] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kolmogorov_complexity](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kolmogorov_complexity)

</comment><comment><USER3> Code can be a compact way of expressing non-random data. All positive integers:

      i=0
      while true:
       i = i + 1
       print i

Most data is non-random. Random data is hard to distinguish from noise.

</comment><comment><USER4> Binary is not longest; read up on Shannon entropy. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entropy_(information_theory)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entropy_\(information_theory\))</comment>


Ask HN: the overview of interesting hn posts by subject? - <AUTHOR>

What was the site that gives an overview of interesting hn posts by subject? Curse my bookmarking habits (or lack thereoff). <comment><AUTHOR> Nobody? Too bad!

<comment><AUTHOR> Found it! <http://www.gabrielweinberg.com/startupswiki/Ask_YC_Archive></comment></comment>


Control the Look & Feel of Form Elements with Uniform jQuery Plugin - <AUTHOR> http://blogupstairs.com/framework/javascript-framework/jquery/control-the-look-feel-of-form-elements-with-uniform-jquery-plugin/ Uniform is jQuery plugin that could control the look and feel of form elements (checkboxes, drop down menus, radio buttons, file upload inputs and etc..) between all browsers. It works in sync with your real form elements to ensure accessibility and compatibility. <comment><USER2> Is this something that anybody actually wants? The form elements are standard in your browser, any user knows immediately what they are. Is theming them a good thing, or just a way to make your web(site|app) "different" than everyone else?

<comment><USER3> Here is my problem with web browser's default form element: inconsistent in their size. For every browser, the default size of form elements varies a few pixels, and that causes the difference in subsequent layout etc. I guess that is the main reason why you don't normally see much default form elements in popular web applications.

<comment><USER4> Plus they're ugly. I just added this to a site we're building which has a large focus on a form. The professional look of the site just skyrocketed.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I've rarely had much luck with theming the browser widgets beyond custom submit-buttons.

There's always a browser not playing ball, always situations where the CSS magic interferes with the surrounding layout, always issues with dynamically generated or loaded content (unstyled by default unless you run the magic again on callback).

All of the issues can be work-arounded. Been there, done that. Not recommended.

</comment><comment><USER6> Not to be confused with Uni-Form, the "framework" for HTML forms which serves a slightly different purpose.

<http://sprawsm.com/uni-form/>

</comment><comment><USER7> Does it use jQuery UI theme support? I've been waiting for jQuery UI to finish cloning all of the HTML form elements for some time. This could be a nice bridge.

<comment><USER8> I've been waiting for the exact same thing, myself. I was just saying to a friend the other day how nice it would be to be able to style select boxes and file inputs with jQuery UI (and how I wish it had a color picker widget so I wouldn't have to use a separate one, but that's another post entirely).

From what I can gather just by looking at the site, it doesn't look like it supports jQuery UI themes, but the theme CSS for Uniforms looks fairly small and not too terribly involved, so it shouldn't be hard to modify it to match your chosen UI theme.

This is definitely one I'm going to keep my eye on.</comment></comment>


New York City bans employers from asking potential workers about past salary - <AUTHOR> http://nytlive.nytimes.com/womenintheworld/2017/04/07/new-york-city-bans-employers-from-asking-potential-workers-about-their-past-salary/ <comment><USER4> I never answer questions about my past or expected salary, not to employers and not to recruiters.

Most employers don't ask, and the few that have (perhaps by having a part of an employment form ask for previous salary) have never made my leaving that information out an issue.

Most recruiters, if they even ask, respect my decision not to talk about it, but I've been pressed hard on this by a handful of recruiters, and have had this be a deal breaker for a couple of them. One recruiting firm admitted that they were paid by the employers to get this information. I wasn't getting paid to give this information out, however, and it's worth more to me to keep it private as I'm placed at a disadvantage in negotiations if I name a number first.

It's still a seller's market for IT talent, and there are plenty of other fish in the sea, so if some recruiters can't accept that I won't name a number, it's their loss.

It's great that NYC is taking the lead on this, and I really hope the rest of the US follows suit.

<comment><USER5> Agree with you in principle (your previous deal with company A is absolutely none of company B's business) but I would like to challenge you on one point:

> I'm placed at a disadvantage in negotiations if I name a number first.

... This is unlikely to be true. Generally, in price negotiations it is advantageous to name a number first. This is known as anchoring and basically the theory is that the end result is better for you if the company has to wheedle you down from 170k than if they anchor the price at 100k and you have to argue them up from there.

Plus, it saves a lot of wasted negotiation time on both sides if your price is just way too high for the company and this is clear from the beginning.

(edit: I'm talking about expected salary in general, not disclosing your current salary level)

<comment><USER6> I think you're confusing two sales concepts - first to talk, and anchoring.

Anchoring is a more general marketing concept that works well in advertisements (crossing out a black $280 and putting a red $100 underneath it). Anchoring doesn't work so well for something much more fluid (and with much more at stake) such as a salary negotiation.

In-person sales meetings (which is what an interview is, for both sides) are where "first to talk" come into play. It's a concept as old as war meetings between opposing roman generals. First to talk loses, period. Why? I don't know, but years of sales and recruitment has taught me that whoever slips is going to give the advantage to the other side of the table.

You can _only hurt yourself_ by giving a number. The company has set a budget, either you fit or you don't. Maybe the budget is higher than you expected and you take the job for way more than you would have asked for. Maybe it's less _and you don 't take the job_. The key point is that company is not the only company you are dealing with - you can move on to another. And another and another, and as long as you don't give your number, you will win out.

I can't share this data but when I worked at a bootcamp our analysis showed this as well. Students that gave their number got paid less. There's a big push for bootcamp transparency so hopefully that sort of info will get published soon.

<comment><USER7> From my experience, naming your price works in your favor if you are aggressive. People having similar positions are paid at 20% difference all dependent on their negotiation skills. Also, companies usually don't have set budgets for positions. It's quite fluid depending on the person being recruited and their other offers and expectations. You need to make it work in your favor. If you send up leaving money on the table, it just shows you did not come prepared. Besides, there's nothing wrong in getting what you asked for even if in another set of circumstances, with some amount of luck, you could have gotten more.

<comment><USER8> I would disagree with what you're saying about companies not having set budgets. They may have a range but it's certainly a set range. The larger the organization the more hard the range likely is due to the fact that the hiring manager doesn't even set the range, HR does based on salary comps.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Once upon a time I interviewed for a role in NYC. An employee that I spoke to said they paid pretty well, and I could expect about 120. The HR person wanted my previous salary, and I refused. Eventually they said their range was 130-150. I said it wasn't gonna work cause I was looking for something more like 220. They said okay we can do that no problem. My previous salary was 110.

<comment><USER6> Not bad man, although I have to wonder what you'd have made if you never gave your number ;)

Luckily they gave 3 numbers first, so you avoided a trap many people fall into on both sides of the table - not negotiating at all.

Imagine the first thing a company says after an interview is "what's your number" and you shrug and say "100," and the company reps blink and go "no problem," then pass you an offer. Wouldn't you feel a little skeeved? "I bet I could've gotten more," you'd think. You'd be right. Companies can feel that same feeling.

A bit of back and forth is healthy. It makes both parties feel like they struggled and finally settled on a number that is fair for both (whether or not that number could have been higher or lower). That's why I always recommended bootcamp grads to push back on an initial offer. Always. Worse case the company says "no, this is the limit." Best case, you get more money, the company feels like you were a little bit harder to get and thus more valuable, etc.

<comment><USER9> I thought I was throwing out a crazy number. They agreed so quickly that I had no idea what to do. It's interesting to see whether people's first reaction is "that's amazing" or "you messed up." I felt both. I still wonder how high I could have gone.

<comment><USER6> Well, you could've gone higher. Oh well! Next time.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Lots of people here talking from their own experience as highly skilled, in- demand professionals.

However, helping friends apply to jobs in other industries - <USER2> medical - I saw that most of the applications involved filling out an automated form that required prior salary information to complete.

There's no advantage to an employee from being forced to disclose this information and it perpetuates compensation discrepancies by gender/race/guts to ask. Very glad to see this made illegal.

Now, if they were really serious about fixing pay discrepancies, they'd make it mandatory to post salary ranges with job listings.

</comment><comment><USER11> Have a google for: "can i lie to a employer about past salary" \- it really really messes with people - people feel super uncertain about how to approach this situation. Throwing any confidence they have during the negotiation out the window.

Even now I hesitate to write this as a million people will come out and say never lie - what if they found out.

More than banning. There needs to be acceptance that if someone asks you. You are totally free to make any damn number up that you like. Seriously. Its a sales situation. It should not be like your under oath on the stand. Which is how most people view it.

<comment><USER12> Interesting. An additional argument for lying is that you're probably already lying in other parts of the interview.

Why do you want to work here? (money, and the desire to pay the bills and feed my children)

Where do you see yourself in 5 years? (probably not at this company)

What is your biggest weakness? (not like I would actually tell a stranger a real answer)

<comment><USER13> If these are honestly your answers to these questions and you in fact give lies as answers, you sound like exactly the type of person I absolutely hate working with and actively try to weed out during interviewing.

To anyone reading this new to the industry, there are absolutely legitimate ways to answer these questions without lying.

> Why do you want to work here? (money, and the desire to pay the bills and > feed my children)

That is a given for nearly any job. If it's your _only_ reason you want to take this particular job, it tells me you have zero passion for your work. The people I know who are like this are what I'd describe as "9-5" employees, don't learn anything outside of work, and basically do the bare minimum at everything.

I want to work with someone that's at least somewhat excited about the job they're going to be doing, and bring some energy, new ideas and actually care about doing a good job. It's the difference between a day labourer and a craftsman.

> Where do you see yourself in 5 years? (probably not at this company)

So? That's fine. Is anyone hiring with the expectation or even desire their employees stay for 5 years?

There are many good ways to answer this, but it's definitely not "doing the same thing as today, with the same technology stack, tools and level of knowledge".

> What is your biggest weakness? (not like I would actually tell a stranger a > real answer)

This is kind of a crappy interview question, but there are decent ways to answer it [1]. They are not asking for your deep, personal failings, but for your weaknesses as they apply to the job at hand.

[1] [https://workplace.stackexchange.com/questions/66620/which- ow...](https://workplace.stackexchange.com/questions/66620/which-own- weaknesses-are-ok-to-state-during-job-interview-if-demanded-to-say-s)

<comment><USER14> > The people I know who are like this are what I'd describe as "9-5" > employees, don't learn anything outside of work, and basically do the bare > minimum at everything.

What's wrong being a 9-5 employee?

<comment><USER13> If you're a creative person, like a developer, it's inefficient.

Context switching is expensive, and going home for the day is a big context switch.

If it's 5:00 and you have 30 minutes left on something, most likely it'll take something like two hours tomorrow to get back into and finish it.

If you always go home exactly at 5, it means you are either constantly being inefficient and doing the context switch, you are not doing anything late in the afternoon to avoid the context switch, or you are extremely good at both estimating and optimizing your time so all your tasks are quantized within working hours. While things may work out to look like the third case sometimes, I find it hard to believe anyone is _that_ good that it can happen literally every day, which leads me to believe they're often doing one of the other two things.

<comment><USER15> Or, I consider time with my family worth more than the context switch I'd have.

<comment> eric-hu And just to take this further: there's a massive context switch for the dev team when a burned out developer leaves after 1-2 years, compared to the 9-5 dev who's still there and happy.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> It will be interesting to see how this affects the hiring markets. Out in SF/etc it came up in just about every discussion I had last time I was looking for work usually as part of the first phase. No point interviewing candidates that wouldn't accept the job. It's pretty much a risk mgmt exercise from the hiring side. Similarly, I always asked what the compensation range they're targeting is as I don't want to waste my time either.

I wonder if this ban addresses background checks covering the same information, because some companies do ask for this data from previous employers although not all provide it. Without protection there this ban seems fairly limited.

Anyhow, I don't agree with all advice to never disclose current/previous salary. In some scenarios certainly it makes sense, but in others it is the opposite. You want to justify a higher market value and set the expectation that you're unlikely to be interested unless they're willing to compensate at $X or higher. Of course it's different in terms of leverage if you're employed currently or not. Recruiters and interviewers will waste tons of your time if you don't get on the same page quickly. Lack of transparency around your compensation expectations will exacerbate this issue. Whether that means you tell them what you're making or what you'd like to make doesn't really matter, but you better do at least one of the two.

<comment><USER6> In my experience (external contract recruitment) the background check usually happens after an offer has been negotiated and accepted. I've also never seen a background check request for actual salary information. I'm not even sure how that would work... we would just send the candidates' information to this company that churns through court docs to see if they have a criminal history, send them to Quest to get drug tested, donesies bananas. Maybe in the employment verification stage? Even then though, I highly doubt a previous employer would offer that information up - oftentimes they weren't even allowed to comment on the _quality_ of the candidates' work. Nightmare for reference checks to the big EPCs and operators like BP or Jacobs.

<comment><USER17> I was asked in my last background check, and the proof (of that and employment) was my tax forms.

<comment><USER6> _You_ being asked is a bit different than a background check. You can refuse quite easily.

<comment><USER17> I agree. Just pointing it out it does sometimes come up in background checks, since you said it never had for you.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> My past salary is an irrelevant information for my potential future employer. If they ask about it, my response would be: "Why would you like to know it?" Any answer to this question is bad. If they do not bail out and stop asking at this point, then I bail out.

The point is that if I want, I can completely change my way of life by switching to a job which pays 50 % of my current salary. Or 400 % of my current salary. It does not matter. What matters is that it is solely my decision and none of my potential future employer's business.

If they want to know my current salary, it is a red flag. I do not care about them knowing it, but there is a high risk that they will use that information to try to make an offer which _they_ think that I ought to consider good. They can offer e.g. my current salary + their negotiating margin and think "hey, we have offered you more than you have now, so you ought to be happy". While in reality, the only person who can responsibly decide whether I am happy about it or not is me.

Note that I am not criticizing companies which want to hire for cheap. This is all right. But they need to do it transparently, from the beginning. They should say it clearly and upfront: for this position, our budget is somewhere in this range ... are you interested or not? This is a fair way to go.

<comment><USER19> "But they need to do it transparently, from the beginning. They should say it clearly and upfront: for this position, our budget is somewhere in this range"

This goes both ways I think: For this position, I am looking for something in this range, are you interested or not?

<comment><USER20> I'll have to look it up, but there are few large groups that basically track and record a number of industries including tech. I'll have to look it up Monday. They use this info to help companies to pay in a range of +- 20% for any position. At least that's what I've learned from the management training part of this gig.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Good. Not enough people realize the best way to answer this question is with a straight-up lie.

<comment> nommm-nommm Careful!!

There's quite a few ways to verify past salary. Specially some employers report employment information to private databases and your potential employer runs a "employment report," like banks run a credit report, as part of a mandatory background check. To see if you lied.

Of course, they can't do that without your permission but agreeing to a background check is a condition of employment.

The database i am thinking of is, IIRC, owned by Lexis Nexis and they claim to have employment data for the majority of Fortune 500 companies.

EDIT: The database I am thinking of is called The Work Number and is owned by Equifax.

[http://www.businessinsider.com/salary-information-not- privat...](http://www.businessinsider.com/salary-information-not-private- anymore-2013-1)

>One woman interviewed by CNBC had a Work Number report that was a whopping 22 pages long, complete with a copy of all of her paychecks over the years.

They claim to have employment information for over 1/3rd of American adults.

<comment><USER22> That's why you just say "around" and add 20% to your current salary.

And even if a company does find out, who cares? What I made at a prior job has zero bearing on my next job. If the new company thinks I bring in enough value to be paid X, then they paying X should be fine.

<comment><USER23> Our internal recruiters ask but it's not a deal breaker if someone doesn't answer. You know what is a deal breaker? Lying.

I've personally seen two offers rescinded after it came out that someone added an egregious amount of money to their previous salary (one to the effect of made approx $100k, _said_ they made $185 and took $175 while complaining loudly about their "pay cut").

What sucks for them is:

A) Everyone involved in that process knows they're a liar.

B) They were now unemployed because this was during the post-acceptance background checks

C) They won't be able to work at any company anyone from A is doing hiring stuff for

<comment><USER22> Wait, so you were ready to pay someone 175k until you found out they only made 100k at their last job and rescinded the offer? How about name the company so people can make sure to avoid them. I hope this company also lists their internal budget for every position, since you know we want to all be honest and everything.

<comment><USER24> If the user's summary is accurate / I found the correct individual on Linkedin the company is [redacted]. I agree with your assessment that this sounds like a unethical company, not to mention the amount of glee expressed in the post over an individual being screwed by the company is disconcerting.

<comment><USER25> On HN users aren't allowed to pursue each other's personal details and bring them here as ammunition in an argument. That crosses the line into personal attack, which is emphatically not allowed here, regardless of how wrong you think someone else or their employer may be. Please don't do it again.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> There's a case to be made for an employee protection preventing an employer from firing an employee for refusing to produce pay stubs from a past employer. However, I've said it before -- preventing _a question_ from being asked is state overreach and constitutes a violation of the first amendment, in my opinion.

<comment><USER27> There are already loads of questions that employers aren't allowed to ask. Are you married? Are you pregnant? How many kids do you have? Is your significant other black? When was the last time you went to church? So, you're about 50, is that right?

<comment><USER23> A) They can legally ask all of these.

B) All of these are in reference to one or more protected classes, which is why it's not legal to discriminate based on one's answer(s) or refusal to answer.

C) Last I checked, "previously made {less,more} than a certain salary" is not a protected class.

<comment><USER28> About (C), it has just become one.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> So people on HN are _pro_ employers posting their employee salaries publicly but _against_ previous companies asking what their salaries are. WTF. I must be missing something here.

I personally believe your salary is your business. Period. Getting salary information bad, forcing employees to divulge salaries from a position of power is disgusting.

Here is me being publicly quartered on HN for pushing back on forcing employees publicly posting salaries: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12805814](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12805814)

<comment><USER30> Companies asking for your previous salary means theyre going to try to pay you with your past salary being a benchmark to work with, not necessarily what the position is worth.

Companies posting employee salaries publicly aims for employees at said company to be paid at the same level (with similar experience).

There's a subtle difference.

Every time I've been asked about salary its been an obvious ploy to lowball my salary due to previous experience of working in a lower cost area. Employees literally have zero incentive not to lie, since employers can't verify

<comment><USER31> Employers ask for your salary to make sure it makes sense to talk.

Everyone mentions it to be lowballing you. But what do you think happens when you mention a higher number than they expect?

While it sometimes will end the conversation (because they're unwilling to pay), sometimes they'll match that, leading to a higher salary than what the offer would have been.

Of course, often, including in big companies, the background check isn't done by the hiring managers. So you can straight up lie about your salary, get a higher offer, then when they background check they get the real one, and they're none the wiser ::shrugs::

Even without lying, In the couple of occasions where I was underpaid and trying to go up, it's simply what I would say when asked. "My salary was X, but I'm looking for X + Y".

It's just not that hard.

<comment><USER32> It's a classic negotiation problem.

From the employee's point of view:

If you specify a number, you have either A) disqualified yourself due to it being too high or B) set a cap on your potential salary (they may have been willing to pay more). Neither scenario represents upside for you.

From the employer's point of view:

If the company specifies a number, it has either A) disqualified itself due to it being too low or B) set a minimum that it will have to pay (candidate may have been willing to accept less). Neither scenario represents upside.

<comment><USER33> > If you specify a number, you have either A) disqualified yourself due to it > being too high or B) set a cap on your potential salary (they may have been > willing to pay more). Neither scenario represents upside for you.

Those are hardly the only outcomes. An impressive salary history can raise the esteem of a candidate. It's a signal that makes the candidate look good, should the employer attach meaning to it, which they're free to do or not do. But it won't hurt you.

The real world is more fluid and complex than just these two rigid outcomes. An employer can put a salary range in writing and then find a great candidate who's simply worth more, and in a market where talent is hard to find you don't turn away great candidates, you reshape the job description. Or maybe the hiring manager passes the employee to a different department or different company with an opening with a higher range. Or maybe the hiring manager passes because they just can't do it but 6 weeks later you get a call back because they haven't found anyone better and the manager got more desperate or fought their boss to increase the hiring budget.

And if your previous salary is higher than the absolute range of the job you're interviewing for, you're still free to tell the employer you're okay with that, if you are. I've done it before. You can also use it to negotiate other benefits. Maybe they're inflexible on the top end of the salary range but you can get extra equity or vacation out of it.

> If the company specifies a number, it has either A) disqualified itself due > to it being too low

You must believe ranges have some flexibility or else a company disqualifying itself is upside for them because it saves them the time of interviewing candidates who aren't willing to take the disclosed range.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> I'm not sure how effective this will be. When I was recruiting It got to the point where I would never ask salary's I would just say, "I'm assume your currently making between XXk and XXk?" and 9 times out of 10 I was in the right range. 1 time out of 10 they would say no and correct me. I just took a educated guess based on knowing the market. Any good recruiter should be able to do the same.

<comment><USER35> The bill also makes it illegal to "rely on the salary history of an applicant in determining the salary, benefits or other compensation for such applicant during the hiring process, including the negotiation of a contract" even if you find out without asking.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> This is the #1 rule I always tell people who are interviewing for a new job. Never tell a potential employer your past job salary, especially so if you are unhappy with that salary.

When my girlfriend was interviewing for a new job two years ago we talked about this because the recruiter was very demanding about knowing what her current salary was and I told her to stay firm on it because the salary in her current job was, frankly, shit. In the end she got a 50% pay increase over her previous job and then six months later got promoted with a pay increase that effectively doubled her salary from her previous job. Which brings me to another point- a lot of people will justify disclosing the amount by reasoning that they can always ask for a raise after they get hired and the important thing is to get a foot in the door. The problem is that anchoring is a very real thing. If you start at $50k instead of a $75k, every raise you get at that company for the rest of your career will be based off that first salary. If you stay at a company for 10-15 years, that is an enormous difference that could be well into the six figures.

Bottom line, don't disclose salary history to employers. You'll seldom find an employer who will tell you what your colleagues in the same job make. Why do you want to show your hand?

As for this law, I'm actually mildly opposed to it. I don't think that the government should have a hand in determining salary beyond minimum wage, because that is an agreement made between two consenting parties in private industry. If you are a more experienced negotiator and are willing to ask for more money than your counterparts, why shouldn't you be at an advantage? There's no law that says you have to disclose it and the rest is up to you.

<comment><USER15> Why should you be at an advantage? Why should the negotiations have anything to do with your current salary?

<comment><USER20> They need to be at the advantage, their life and time is being bought. And because if the pay is shit, they'll only end up doing shitty work. Possibly leaving much not finished the next chance they get somewhere that is willing to compensate appropriately.

<comment><USER15> "They need to be at the advantage, their life and time is being bought."

Same is true for someone who is not good at negotiating, or is negotiating from a weaker position.

"And because if the pay is shit, they'll only end up doing shitty work."

So why not just have the company pay well for everyone?

<comment><USER20> "So why not just have the company pay well for everyone?" That's just not something they do.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> I advocate for all salary data being public.

To get a better salary and better work conditions cannot depend of hiding a figure. It is a weak position, to say the least.

</comment><comment><USER38> That is fantastic news!

I recently interviewed with a prominent Drupal company, Forum One, and was shocked that they not only asked for my previous salary, but previous 3 salaries and also wanted me to verify them with pay stubs! I told them no and the interview stalled after that. That was a sad day, I really wanted to work with them but what they asked for was unacceptable.

They were not in New York but I welcome this law everywhere.

<comment><USER39> >I told them no and the interview stalled after that. That was a sad day, I really wanted to work with them

You assumed you wanted to work with them based on a false idea of what that company was. It sounds like you lucked out.

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> They are trying to pass this in Philadelphia in May. Comcast and the local Chamber of Commerce are suing to stop it citing that it's a Freedom of Speech violation.

Besides being able to freely low ball candidates who started behind the 8 ball (women/minorities/people who didn't go to elite schools), is there a real argument for companies HAVING to know your previous salary?

<comment><USER41> There really isn't. In a negotiation knowing the price paid for a product previously, or in this case a person, is a distinct advantage to the person paying. And will do nothing else but perpetuate low pay for underpaid people. Think of the scenarios:

1\. I made X at my last job where X is far less than what you are paying your current employees. Well as a business owner and negotiator if I offer them X + a small bump I can probably get away with paying less.

2\. I made X at my last job where X is far more than you are paying your current employees. You either are going to stretch the budget, or negotiate.

So it is always a negotiation _unless_ the person says they made less. A true negotiation is "How much are you asking for?" A person selling products isn't going to tell someone what they are selling their products for to a competitor. They are both going to negotiate a price or decide not to do business.

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> The analogy is not perfect, but all the time people like to know how much a house or car sold for in the past, or how much a stock traded for the in past, etc. Seems like useful data.

Now, I'm not advocating for or against this particular question, but I sure do hope there is data collected and studied on the effect this has in NY before anyone jumps to conclusions. I feel it's too easy to have a knee-jerk reaction on this one.

There is no way to know whether this helps/hurts/is neutral for any particular class of people without studying its effects.

<comment><USER43> The problem is the one way communication. I would personally have no problem giving out my past salary, in return for the current salaries if all comparable current employees at the company.

<comment><USER42> You can refuse to answer their question. You can also ask them how much others are making at your position (and they can refuse to answer that, too). I don't see where the asymmetry is.

<comment><USER32> It's often more a power asymmetry. You need the job, they have a line of candidates out the door.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> A lot of the analogies and reasoning I'm reading here is faulty. Nothing stops HR depts. from sharing information which to a first degree of approximation would give them an idea of the market rate for the positions they're filling. Companies are already free to rescind offers if they find out that you've lied about aspects of your past work history. It's part of what at-will employment is. This is about interfering with the negotiation of the individual job seeker. If I can't ask for your salary history, then I might miss out on the competitive advantage you as a candidate have in that you're willing to work for less over potentially more qualified people as you build your skill-set and expertise. The right way to help those who are taken advantage of is education about how to bargain and what information they need and need not share, not legislation.

</comment><comment><USER45> Here in India, you are not only asked your previous salary, you have to provide your last (sometimes three) payslip while joining. Some companies have a policy of NOT giving more than a 30% hike from your previous salary - <USER3> need top management approval for such a hike.

<comment><USER46> At the time of joining - is usually for background verification. Most companies don't even care what your last pay was. Even if you are paid higher, they are going to play in their range.

However, during negotiation, if you lied about your previous pay just to get a better hike - you would get flagged, may get fired and get yourself listed into an unofficial blacklist. Its more of an ethics issue than just a pay mismatch.

> Some companies have a policy of NOT giving more than a 30% hike from your > previous salary These companies are telling you "loud and clear" \- "we > don't care about talent".

There are other companies that would pay "fairly" as per their bands - even if that means a 100-200% hike

<comment><USER47> I have been through job searching recently in India and I have applied for 10s of companies most of them are statups.

> At the time of joining - is usually for background verification.

Not just during joining, many companies asked my previous salary and expected salary during the first talk. Some companies did not even contact back when I refused to disclose my previous salary.

Salary discrimination is everywhere in startups, not just by gender also by number of years of experience, University, Degree, previous company...

My opinion is "every employee doing the same job should be paid the same."

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER48> Seems like an ethics test. Will you tell the truth about your previous low salary or lie to make sure you don't get lowballed?

Then for the employer, will you decrease the salary to match previous low rates or wages? Or will you pay him/her the market rate regardless?

Personally, I have always been asked how much I made at previous places. I prefer to give a range than specify individually.

<comment><USER49> > I prefer to give a range than specify individually.

FWIW, this is likely almost as bad for you in the negotiation as giving the number. You will simply always get offers towards the bottom of your range. It is better to refuse to answer, and just say you're looking for a market rate salary for this role.

<comment><USER50> Giving the number doesn't have to be bad for you. (But it can be.)

But yeah, never give any range. Not when talking about previous compensation, and not when talking about what you want. Just give them straight up numbers, if you give anything at all.

And you should definitely give them a number about how much you want to be paid. You want to set the first reference point. And yes, that means you will have to do your own due diligence about how much the market can currently bear for your (interviewing) skills. But you need to know these numbers anyway.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER51> Laws like this one that restrict businesses from asking questions that individuals could ask strikes me as very strange.

I could ask my buddy how much he made at his last job.

I couldn't ask my buddy how much he made at his last job if I'm considering hiring him to work at my company.

Why is this information legal to acquire when I'm wearing my business hat vs when I'm wearing my friend hat?

<comment><USER52> Do you plan to have children in the near future? Are you currently pregnant? Do you prefer men or women as romantic/sexual partners? How old are you? What religion were you raised with? Do you currently attend a church?

>Why is this information legal to acquire when I'm wearing my business hat vs when I'm wearing my friend hat? You tell me....

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> I'll have to find some way to bring it up myself. A higher than usual salary history is a good tangible signal to future employers and I'm not going to give it up.

<comment><USER53> Way to see the bigger picture for employee rights here.

<comment><USER33> I didn't say I'd fight against the existence of the law. I said people who are hurt by the law should retain the same negotiating power they had before rather than lose their right.

<comment><USER54> You won't lose any negotiating power. Just because they can't ask doesn't mean you can't counter an offer and ask for a higher salary. If they want you and think you're worth it, you'll get it. Just don't see them not being able to ask really shifting the negotiating power much if any for you.

<comment><USER33> Likewise, just because an employer offers a lower salary than you want based on your salary history doesn't mean you can't counter with the salary you want. If they want you and think you're worth it, you'll get it.

The benefit of telling a prospective employer that a previous employer decided you were worth an above-average salary vs. simply requesting an above-average salary without context is obvious.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER55> I have gotten out of discussing past salary by saying that I believe salary history perpetuates wage discrimination. I am a white man, so I think this only makes me seem idealistic rather than disgruntled. But I do honestly believe this to be true.

Smart people who negotiate your salary do not want to get anywhere near a conversation that has the phrase "wage discrimination" in it for any reason, even hypothetical. They do not want to argue about what is or isn't wage discrimination, even if they disagree. So it can end the discussion with both parties feeling they are being high minded by avoiding the topic.

</comment><comment><USER56> Whenever I'm asked for my current or former salary I tell the recruiter/HR person to first tell me the salary of all the peers I'll be working with. If it's a contracting company I also ask how much they'll be paid for my position.

If they don't provide those money details why should I?

</comment><comment><USER57> This will be tricky for banks and hedge funds etc. These firms typically, in London at any rate:

\- never quote a salary (or even a range) for a job opening

\- following many interviews any offer is always based on prior "comp", of which you will have to provide 3 years of info (base, bonus, deferred awards, retention awards, benefits etc) plus, of course, documentary evidence to support. HR departments start squealing if uptick is a greater than 20% increase, although some people do manage higher (anything over 30% is almost unheard of, except for a handful of big producers)

\- they go through your background with a fine toothcomb and check EVERYTHING you supplied on your CV and in the screening questionaires you have to complete. They employ specialist third party agencies to do the research on you.

If you do not comply with this you simply won't get hired. It is universal and practiced everywhere in finance, I've never heard of anyone not being subjected to this.

<comment><USER58> Not sure how it's tricky for them. They just have to stop doing it or never hire anyone.

</comment></comment><comment><USER59> Mandating that employers are forbidden to ask about previous salary seems like a pathway to more government intrusion into a complex process. Part of job seeking involves learning how to negotiate with a potential employer. I've side-stepped many an inappropriate or premature question about salary with "Are you making an offer," followed by agreement to disclose the "details" if and when such offer is forthcoming at which point I know far more about what the position involves, am in a much better negotiating position and can explain, if necessary, why the pay scale was lower. If that doesnt satisfy a recruiter or potential employer, I tend to think they're not very serious about me as a candidate and I havent disclosed personal information that might limit my future job search.

<comment><USER15> No. Why should the negotiation have anything to do with the prospective employee's current salary?

Not to mention, you're saying that prospective employees shouldn't answer the question anyway. However, that only protects those who feel they're in a strong bargaining position. It does absolutely nothing to help those who aren't, and those are generally the ones that need the most help.

</comment></comment><comment><USER60> This is a beautiful worker protection, and it makes me feel optimistic about our country's future.

<comment><USER61> keep telling yourself that... this law is bullshit

<comment><USER62> How so?

<comment><USER61> you will see...

<comment><USER63> so no answer? If you have a reason I'd like to hear it. I cant think of a problem with this cause it makes the information disparity between employees and employers more equal, but Id like to hear any counterargument

<comment><USER61> i don't think the law will improve the information disparity. I think employers will quickly find ways around it as they always have and it will promptly be business as usual.

<comment><USER60> I see perspectives like yours very frequently in many topics of discussion.

The point I'd like you to consider:

The ease with which something can be done can affect the probability and frequency of an action without affecting the possibility of the action.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER64> I know one employer this will impact: Goldman Sachs. Not only do they demand you tell them what your current salary is during the interview process, they force you during a rigorous background check before your first day to prove it.

</comment><comment><USER65> "Closing the gender pay gay is important" Come on NYT....

<comment><USER44> Freudian slip, perhaps? [https://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2013/03/01/gay- couples-...](https://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2013/03/01/gay-couples-more- educated-higher-income-than-heterosexual-couples)

</comment></comment><comment><USER66> I'm a bit skeptical that this will have a real impact. It may stop employers from asking, but it does not stop them from low-balling someone based on race/gender, etc. HR departments calculate this in to their offers already.

Don't get me wrong, I think this will help some folks and is a great step forward. People who know their value and what the employer pays will surely benefit (or great negotiators). But for the people this is touted to help, they can still very easily be kept in the lower-end of the pay scale.

It seems to me that the only way to close the pay gap is to have employers release what they pay. That in itself is a tough thing to write legislation for. In my mind, it would need to take into account experience, actual role/leveling, etc. A lot of it is subjective and easy to manipulate to help the employer. And of course, if we just release a straight list of all employees' salaries (with the details needed to calculate where you fall), you may run into privacy concerns.

</comment><comment><USER67> "It will take $xxx k base salary to leave my current company" \-- The ultimate answer to life and the universe and everything.

</comment><comment><USER68> Personally I think it's good when they ask. I no longer answer that question with the truth, but as if they asked "what do you think you're actually worth?" \- and you can find out pretty quick by their response/reaction whether or not they are going to try and lowball you.

</comment><comment><USER69> Totally avoid this question Being asked by setting the salary you seek in stone before going to the interview. Especially if your working with a recruiter!

If they suddenly ask this question then they are trying to renege on their promise and for me it's time to go.

</comment><comment><USER70> For me it's not the salary (been out of tech and would not expect much nego. power), but how do I quantitfy primo health insurance, 31+ days off a year, 5 months sick leave and a 1/2 mile commute.

I really don't know how to assign a number to all that.

</comment><comment><USER71> My experience with this was in London, a twitter.com recruiter contacted me a couple of years ago. At the time I was searching for a job so I replied that I was interested. We had the usual HR/Recruiter call. It ended with them asking how muh my previous employer was paying me. I said that was confidential and would not share. Their reply was "this information is mandatory and we cannot continue the process if you will not provide it." I said I wouldn't and it ended there... two months later their recruiter contacted me again saying it was ok for me not to share and provide expectations instead.

</comment><comment><USER72> > Underlying the bill is the notion that employers "anchor" the salaries they > offer to potential employees based on their current or previous salary — if > an employee had faced pay discrimination at a previous job, in other words, > the employer's subsequent lower than market value offer would effectively > perpetuate the discrimination.

> "Being underpaid once should not condemn one to a lifetime of inequity," > said New York City Public Advocate Letitia James

... Or if a person does not know how to negotiate.

</comment><comment><USER73> As far as I know, there's nothing to stop employers from exchanging salary information directly with previous employers under quid-pro-quo agreements.

And there's nothing to stop employers from buying/renting this information from third parties, such as recruitment agencies or brokers in personal data.

All of these are arguably more reliable sources of salary information than asking the candidate directly.

</comment><comment><USER74> Well done New York City! London needs this desperately, most recruiters here won't let you proceed without it, unless you apply directly.

</comment><comment><USER75> I think this law is silly.

If you don't like this question, then you can either choose not to answer it or use it to your advantage by 'rounding up' your numbers - This should actually help you with your negotiations as an employee.

In the unlikely event that they ask for proof, you can always tell them that your personal finances are a private matter between you and your accountant.

<comment><USER15> Not really. Someone who is not in a strong bargaining position is not going to be able to push back and say no. The company will say, "Answer or we don't hire you." And while you might say "You don't want to work there anyway," I know I like being able to buy food and pay rent much more than I like not being hired. By banning the question outright, they make sure that your ability to not answer the question is not related to the strength of your bargaining position.

</comment></comment><comment><USER76> It should also ban potential employee disclosing the pay of previous employment. Otherwise it would become a norm soon that the companies specifically won't ask about it, but will hire only the candidates who disclose it by themselves, which makes the candidate to disclose the previous income by themselves for having a better shot at getting hired.

</comment><comment><USER77> Wow, this is _yuge_. Sure I can refuse to answer the question, but nothing beats a law that makes the question futile and unlikely to be asked in the first place.

Granted employers will just scrounge around on the internet for your salary info instead, which is slightly creepier, but at least they have to work for it.

Can't wait for other states to follow suit.

</comment><comment><USER78> I was asked this before. When I refused, they said it was mandatory. I put my number as 30% more. There is no way for them to confirm, I think this is an unfair practice, so if they are forcing you to play the game, why you would be fair? I have got the job, as a junior, I was making same money as senior minus the benefits.

</comment><comment><USER79> It's a sellers' market. If you're looking, just state your requirements and negotiate from there (or not). If you're not looking, then your current compensation is your current job's best offer, and you might as well share that information in case somebody wants to beat it.

</comment><comment><USER80> I dislike employers who take advantage of employees.

I dislike New York City's solution too. There are other ways to empower employees and not asking about past salaries won't eliminate the pay gap. But I'm not an expert so maybe this is a step in the right direction and can result in lasting changes.

</comment><comment><USER81> When IBM hired me, the only question I was asked about salary was "how much would you like?" I picked a number and he said "I think I can do that, let me check" followed the next day by "yes".

Maybe I left money on the table, but I'm happy, and I've gotten good raises since.

<comment><USER82> More than likely you left money on table. I found asking people what salary they would like, they always low balled themselves with a 10% increase of current salary. Minimum i give is 15% because that is average for people changing jobs. Devops engineer i just hired was well under priced for the market so i gave him 45% raise. He didn't even ask for increase in pay.

Not every company/hiring manger is trying to rip off their employees. Paying people industry/local a bit above averages for the job duties makes for happier employees that are less likely to leave or have moral issues.

</comment></comment><comment><USER83> In the interviews I've had so far the 'how much are you making' question comes up at the beginning of the process almost everywhere. It's an obvious lowball play, anywhere that is super aggressive about asking for this is a giant red flag to me.

</comment><comment><USER84> Instead of salary it may worth disclosing ballpark of total compensation including shares/options vesting, bonuses, etc, without breaking it down.

After all "desired salary" question is answered sooner or later but in reality - the total compensation is more important.

</comment><comment><USER85> throwaway for obv reasons. This is fantastic news. But for those of you wondering what to do if you are asked this - it's pretty simple: you lie. This is a negotiation. If you ask a car salesman how much the dealership paid for a car, you think they're going to tell you the truth?

"What if they find out?" They won't. How could they? There ARE laws, very clear and absolute ones, about what a past employer can share about you. Your salary history is most certainly protected by them.

"What if they ask for a paystub?" Ask yourself if you know what you're getting into here. This is not a company that is going to treat its employees well.

</comment><comment><USER86> I never understood this one. I have always told recruiters straight up that I'm not going to disclose that information. Nobody involved with making the hiring decision is going to be asking you how much you made at your last job.

</comment><comment><USER87> What effect is this going to have if the state agency wages are already online: [https://catalog.data.gov/dataset?tags=salary](https://catalog.data.gov/dataset?tags=salary)

</comment><comment><USER88> I interviewed at a big phone/ISP company a few months ago in MA.

They would not make me an offer unless I shared my past W2 with them for them to make sure my past salary was what I claimed it was.

Needless to say, I laughed at them and walked away.

</comment><comment><USER89> I once worked for a large trade association in Georgia. The Director had a general policy that anyone who refused to provide expected salary was not even considered, at all, no exceptions.

<comment><USER90> Did you find other things that Director did made the company less effective or unpleasant to work at? In other words, if that's the company's policy, is it possibly a sign the company is not the best place to go?

</comment></comment><comment><USER91> So I should not be divulging my current salary to recruiters? Interesting.

</comment><comment> awinter-py we should make it illegal to ask about college degree. That would erode the signaling value of a degree and bring down the price / paper value of a diploma.

</comment><comment><USER54> Would have rather seen a bill also legitimize complete and total lying in response to the question. Answers or claims regarding past salary may not be verified or used as the basis of any employment action.

<comment><USER92> A bill to legitimize lying would help people who know about it. But the people who most need the help are those who have never heard about this controversy or don't think they have the power in the negotiation to consider lying. The way NYC did it, the law protects the most vulnerable.

<comment><USER54> True. I edited my response to say "also" thinking about your point. I like my proposal less and less, honestly. I'm personally not a very good liar, so it wouldn't help much.

Also, there's just something that feels wrong about normalizing lying instead of fixing the root problem.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER93> Is it legal to lie about the past salary in the US?

</comment><comment><USER94> When does this take effect?

</comment><comment><USER95> Personally I have found disclosing salary to be far more beneficial in negotiations. I guess who wish to disclose their salary still can right ? Or has the law banned employees from disclosing it ?

</comment><comment><USER96> This is bad for the free market and freedom of speech. I hope it gets challenged on First Amendment grounds.

<comment><USER97> I see my past salaries as trade secret of my business. So it's good that I can protect this secret.

<comment><USER16> ...yeah but imagine you're trying to hire a contractor to do some job. Of course you're going to ask, "how much does it cost?" Generally you will shop this job around to get an idea of the range of prices for similar work from qualified contractors and then make an informed decision. If you go at it the opposite, "I'm willing to pay X for this job Y" then you've skewed your capability to make an informed decision unless you already have an accurate basis for what the job should cost.

In the employment world, folks use Radford and similar as guidance which of course can steer them of course from where the local talent market actually is.

<comment><USER97> They are asking for past salaries not the salary an employee wants for this particular job. You aren't demanding a full list of past work and its price from a contractor either.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER61> umm... laws like this don't last very long. employers quickly develop work arounds. I will be interested to see what hiring managers try (or fail).

<comment><USER98> This can't be true 100% of the time or the hiring/working condition would be roughly the same regardless of legal environment. This, at least to me, does not seem to be the case.

</comment></comment><comment><USER87> Don't have to ask. The data is open:

[https://gist.github.com/rodionos/b77080e028e3b680b2c1b5091ba...](https://gist.github.com/rodionos/b77080e028e3b680b2c1b5091ba61911)

Source: [https://catalog.data.gov/dataset/civil- list-2014](https://catalog.data.gov/dataset/civil-list-2014)

> The Civil List reports the agency code (DPT), first initial and last name > (NAME), agency name (ADDRESS), title code (TTL #), pay class (PC), and > salary (SAL-RATE) of individuals who were employed by the City of New York > at any given time during the indicated year.

<comment><USER35> This bill applies to private companies too. In cases where a company discovers your past salary without asking, the bill makes it illegal to rely on that to determine an offer.

<comment><USER16> good to know, I was wondering if this would include information from previous employers on background checks... which it sounds like it does.</comment></comment></comment>


Tesla Powerwall: Not Just for Solar - <AUTHOR> http://www.jlconline.com/how-to/electrical/tesla-powerwall-not-just-for-solar_o <comment><AUTHOR> This is a pretty good description of the energy storage system I plan to install at my home, along with the addition of PV solar. I'm hoping that my power utility company (National Grid) can provide a smart meter that works well with this system.

The author (Ted Cushman) implies that Tesla is now shipping the Powerwall in quantity to certain customers. Apparently the Powerwall is implemented with a large array of 2.5" 3.7 volt lithium-ion batteries.</comment>


To Obama with Love, and Hate, and Desperation - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/17/magazine/what-americans-wrote-to-obama.html <comment><USER2> A lot of people in this country really hates Obama. And it seems, when you take out all the other ugliness, they base that hate on the idea that he is not genuine.

> President Obama was the first to come up with a deliberate and explicit > practice of 10 letters every day.

But reading things like this, and a myriad of other things about Obama, I think that if you could scientifically quantify genuineness, Obama would rank at the very top. So I find it really offensive when people attack the man on his integrity.

You can attack his policy, but if you attack the man, I can not, and will not, agree with you.

<comment><USER3> Seems like Obama was put on a spot more than other presidents. He could say the right things, act the right way[1]; yet if at any point something negative came (drones, nsa) he would be bashed generously. People expect A+ from him and scream at an A-. The sad part is that Trump is said to have been elected because he was felt like a true person; I understand their sentiment, his mouth seems unfiltered, so he's a true nasty person but people still prefer that to someone that looks like 90% good samaritan.

[1] you can find lots of videos where he would adress antagonistic crowds peacefully and wisely. Lots of times where he showed caring (his behavior toward his wife) and a sane personality (cracking turkey jokes with his daugthers).

<comment><USER4> > Seems like Obama was put on a spot more than other presidents.

Another element there is the benchmark against which he set himself up for -- Hope and Change. I remember having a lot of hope and now after 8 years, it feels kid of "meh". There were some good things, but also a lot of blunders. I guess I shouldn't expect much from that political office.

Not sure about Trump. Having lived in the Rust Belt I can see how people there understand and follow him. And I heard he just withdrew from TPP, not bad so far.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I wouldn't have considered myself an emotional person, but some of those letters touched me deeply. The anonymous letter from the partner of a soldier brought me to tears. I have often disagreed with Obama's policies and criticised him for his actions on drone strikes and mass surveillance. However I am now certain I could not do a better job than he did if I can't even read all the mail he got without crying.

Edit - the rationale behind some of his decisions is clearer. For example, he commuted more sentences than any other President. You would do that if you're reading mail from inmates and their relatives and friends on a regular basis. If you take the opposite approach and avoid such letters its much easier to insulate yourself from "criminals", telling yourself that they probably deserve to be where they are.

Similarly with engaging in the drone war and avoiding engagement in Syria. I hate the fact that so many innocent Yemenis and Pakistanis died in the drone war, but it makes sense that he would be much more cautious about deploying boots on the ground if he was regualarly reading the mail sent by servicemen and their families.

</comment><comment><USER6> Very interesting read - I am halfway through it.

I wonder if the new POTUS will keep the same tradition of having 10 letters each day added to his daily briefing?

NOTE: Not a snarky comment. Just genuinely curious query if this is a 'thing' that all past presidents did, and future ones will?

<comment><USER7> Do you really believe he had the time to read 10 letters every day? Even at 5 minutes per letter that'd take 50 minutes. I just don't see how that's possible.

<comment><USER8> I'm not sure why you're putting 5 minutes per letter in there. I'm sure he's a well-read guy. It's not crazy to think he could get through a one page letter in a minute or less.

<comment><USER7> Some people receive responses, so if he wrote them himself you need to factor that in as well.

<comment><USER9> FTA - he sent notes back in the margins for responses, and only occasionally wrote letters back personally.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> One of my favourite reads on politics in a long while. "These were people writing, and you're a person reading, and the president is a person."

But of course the president isn't just a person. The tone in his voice moves the stock market, and the stroke of his pen can kill or save millions. And a person is a person, but the people? They're a mass of voices so loud and chaotic that you would go instantly mad if you could ever truly hear them all.

So the aloofness, the distance, the abstraction of governance is a symptom, not a cause, of inhumanity. It's telling that to break through it in the smallest way, just 10 letters to simulate a sense of personal connection between the president and the people, takes "50 staff members, 36 interns and a rotating roster of 300 volunteers".

Any time we talk about having a beer with the president, it's important to remember that this isn't your buddy, this is the avatar of the world's most powerful and dangerous political machinery. It's like a surgeon taking the time to joke around with you before he describes how he's going to bisect your ribcage. It's a nice gesture, but we still get our surgeons from medical school, not clown college.

</comment><comment><USER11> It seems to me (as an outsider) that people in the U.S.A. now more than ever judge the President for what he symbolises. Perhaps this explains the power of constitutional monarchy (not advocating one system over the other; just an observation).

<comment><USER12> As someone who lives in a constitutional monarchy (Australia). The Royal family is largely seen as a bit of an odd quirk the Queen's head is stamped on the back of our coins but other than that it means very little to most people. I honestly don't know the name of our current Governor General.

One thing that stands out to me is American's seem to have more respect towards elected officials then we do here. For example the sample letters in the article all address Obama as "Sir" or "Mr President". I cannot imagine people addressing our Prime Minister that Formally/politely.

I think it is a cultural issue most people here tend to be very cynical about government and distrustful of politicians.

<comment><USER11> >Queen's head is stamped on the back of our coins

Exactly. She's a symbol :-)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I seriously hate political articles on HN. There are enough places in the net where you can finger-argue with strangers. Can't we just let HN be a place where we come to learn an talk about tech an tech business?

<comment><USER14> Here's a simple solution: don't click the links or comments.

It's what everyone else does with article subjects they don't care for.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Damn I'm going to miss this guy.

I realize HN deserves a higher level of discourse, but it's just got to be said: Fuck Drumpf.</comment>